Last Farewell
by Ten-Faced
Summary: When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko. Sequel to 'Scarborough Fair'.
1. Once or Twice

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT(30/03/2013): Thanks to Fluehatraya!

* * *

Mouri Ran was annoyed. Just a bit, nothing much. Just the usual amount of annoyance a teenage girl would get when she came home to find her charge – who was sometimes like the younger sibling she had never had and sometimes like her childhood friend who also happened to be her crush since forever – came home late and told her that a kidnapping case had been solved and he was going to bed because he was tired after a day of hard work _without_ giving specific details on just where he'd been the entire day.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was furious.

Despite her efforts to keep it all bottled within her, Sonoko and Sera Masumi – a tomboyish female detective in high school – managed to learn about it as they walked home after school. "So Conan-kun was involved in the recent solving of the Clone Kidnappings?" Sera-san, as usual, seemed impressed by her young charge.

Sonoko, not so much. "Knowing his track record, he probably caused it," she muttered darkly.

Ran laughed at the inside joke-like statement made by her best female friend, but she secretly wondered the same. Her father and Edogawa Conan both seemed to attract trouble – Conan more than her father – and they did live in the area near where the kidnapper had lived. No matter how many times people told her that ghosts didn't exist, she couldn't help but keep going back to the theory of a death god haunting the people in her life – after all, there was also Sonoko and Hattori-kun, who also had mysteries come to them at the most unfortunate times. If it wasn't the god of death chasing people around her, then maybe it was simple misfortune. Bad luck wasn't supernatural, not in that sense.

The things that happened around her supported that theory as well. Shinichi always being away, her father always saying the wrong thing to her mother, Conan always running into some sort of a mystery wherever he went . . . .

The Clone Kidnappings had been a bit hard on her. Four boys with almost identical faces were hard to believe. Seeing pictures of the four boys that all looked nearly identical to Kudo Shinichi on the news for being missing had hurt her quite a lot and made her nervous for his safety. She hadn't shown it, but every day she had worried about Shinichi, wondering if he'd be taken by this person as well. Every time a new name and face had been announced missing, she had been wracked with guilt as she felt immense relief at the knowledge that it wasn't him taken.

Now the entire case was solved and she hadn't even gotten to see Shinichi. Why hadn't he come in to check on the kidnappings? He must have seen the faces so similar to his on the news and yet he had stayed back.

She almost wanted to pack Conan up in a suitcase and mail him to Shinichi, wherever he was now. _The little kid solves cases faster than you do_, she thought angrily. _Learn something from him._

But outwards, Ran just chatted, discussing and guessing where Kaitou Kid would strike next and complaining about the test they had taken in math today. Usual stuff.

Nearly at her home, Ran slowed her pace down as she saw a strange person wearing a dark hat and shades in front of the agency. Her friends, noticing the same thing she did, copied her movements. "Excuse me?" she called, hoping this would scare the person away if they bore any ill intent. "Are you lost?"

The person glanced at her before smiling widely. She removed her hat and sunglasses to reveal a somewhat familiar foreign face with fiery red hair. The black pearls she wore in her ears only reinforced the memory of the woman. "Mouri-chan!" she exclaimed in surprisingly decent Japanese. "Suzuki-chan! Do you remember me?"

Ran did. "Roth-san, right?" she asked for clarification, remembering the Club A opening gala. Anika Roth was the heiress and owner of the Club A line, and the woman had been devastated when three of her friends had been made suspects for a murder at the gala party. At least Hattori Heiji and Conan had figured out _which_ of her three suspected friends had been the culprit.

She looked much better now. "Right! How have you been?"

"Great. And you?"

"Fine, fine. Anna and I went to the hot springs to cheer up after the whole Club A incident. Japan definitely has awesome natural baths."

"We do. Would you like to come in?" she asked, gesturing to the agency door.

Anika Roth made an apologetic face. "Actually, I can't. I just came here to repay a favour."

"A favour?" Sonoko looked confused.

"Yes. I wanted to thank you, Mouri-chan and Toyama-chan for your kind words and support back in Club A. I think you girls were the only reason why I didn't have a complete breakdown. And speaking of which, where is Toyama-chan? I thought you were close friends?"

"We are," Ran assured her. "She just lives in Osaka, that's all."

"Ah, okay. Oh," she said, finally noticing Sera-san. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we met. Anika Roth, nice to meet you."

Sera-san shook her offered hand. "Sera Masumi, and the same goes for me."

"This is actually great," Roth-san smiled. "But before I try to repay the favour, I just need to ask you something. Are you girls fans of the group BIS?"

Sonoko shrieked before any of them could answer. "_The_ BIS? Like, the Korean boy group BIS?!"

Roth-san nodded. "I take it Suzuki-chan is a fan. What about the two of you?"

"I like them fine," Sera-san shrugged, much to Ran's surprise. "Decent songs, nice choreography and they try hard."

Huh. She hadn't seemed like a person into boy groups. Sera-san was definitely a surprising, unexpected person.

"And you, Mouri-chan?"

"I like them," she said honestly. Out of all the countless K-pop stars Ran thought they were the most memorable, and she liked some of their songs.

"Great," and with that the foreign woman handed her an envelope. "Do you know about the BIS concert taking place this week?"

Sonoko nodded enthusiastically. "So these are the tickets for . . .?"

Anika Roth smiled instead of verbally replying and the heiress shrieked ecstatically. "How'd you get these? Even my family couldn't get them!"

"The manager for the boys happens to be my friend and she always saves some tickets for me. This time she saved four but I can't make it because I'm returning to Canada tomorrow and I thought it would be a terrible waste to just let them rot, so . . . ."

Sera-san took the envelope and looked inside. "There are more than four tickets in here," she noted.

"Oh, right. This time, my friend also heard about what happened in Club A and she wanted to cheer me up so she sent me four backstage passes to the after party. After the concert you'll be escorted to a secondary location by limo where you'll be able to meet them in person. There's only six other passes like these, so it isn't going to be a huge event or anything like that. Don't worry, they're all _really_ nice boys."

"We get to meet them?" Sonoko looked like she was about to die of happiness. "In person?"

"Yes."

She let out another ecstatic shriek.

* * *

Getting her father to agree hadn't been a problem. Somehow, he had been invited to a fashion show scheduled that day where Okino Yoko was going to be a guest model. As far as that particular day was concerned, the world could end and he wouldn't care as long as he was able to watch the idol walk down the walkway in various different pieces of clothing.

Edogawa Conan, on the other hand, was a different story. "Can't I go with you?" he asked, playing his adorableness to the maximum amount. "I have nothing to do."

"I'm so sorry, Conan-kun," she shrugged apologetically, feeling bad. Even if Roth-san hadn't made them promise to save one ticket for Kazuha and given the last ticket to Sera-san, he still wouldn't have been allowed in. The concert's age limit was ten, and the after party's was fifteen. "Maybe you could stay over at the professor's house for that day? I promise I'll make you something special for dinner the next day."

He put on a brave face, but she could tell he really didn't want her to go. "Okay," he said dejectedly, in such a heartbreaking voice that she nearly cancelled the entire thing before remembering Sonoko withdrawing a promise nearly rivalling a blood oath in its complexity from both her and Sera-san to not back out of this no matter what. Despite the dramatics the young heiress had really wanted to go meet her idols with her friends.

What were friends for? "Thanks, Conan-kun!" she said.

After a few silent moments, he spoke again. "I don't get why BIS is such a big deal," he said, sounding like a sullen and – dare she think it – _jealous_ teenage boy.

Ran lifted and dropped her shoulders, answering his question while shrugging off his maturity. Somewhat. Most teenage boys weren't really that mature, even if they all seemed to have a near-unanimous dislike for 1315. "They're just charismatic, I guess."

It was kind of true. Each and every one of them had an eye-catching quality and the ability to keep the eyes _on_ them once they caught them. The group leader, SD, for example, was the fashion trendsetter for South Korea and several other Asian countries. There were even talks of him getting his own clothing brand, instead of wearing every other famous name to make it the next big thing.

Most of her knowledge on the group came from Sonoko. Recently, the young heiress had fallen in deep love with the Korean group, especially the rapper VICK after watching some television show where he played the role of a stylish assassin. Ran watched a few episodes for the sake of understanding her friend's interests and whole-heartedly agreed the rapper was very good looking, although the storyline itself was a bit cheesy. The drama itself was overall well-made.

She thought Conan would find the story funny. "Sonoko's favorite member of the group is VICK. You know, the rapper? She really liked him after watching a K-drama where he was an assassin working for a crime organization deeply infiltrated in every aspect of seemingly normal life. The boss of that crime organization was never shown, but everyone had a code name and wore black so it was pretty easy to tell who the bad guys were."

Ran didn't get why Conan began to thump his head against the dishwasher. "Conan-kun, stop that! You'll hurt yourself!"

He stopped, looking almost . . . exasperated? "Sorry, Ran-neechan," he apologized, not looking particularly sorry at all. "It's just . . . that's a really bad story."

"I know," she blushed. Despite the obvious bad and almost clichéd storyline she had still enjoyed the few episodes. "But that kind of thing would never happen in actual life, right?"

Conan bashed his head one last time into the spot on the dishwasher. "Right," he answered, hair considerably messier than it had been before she had told him about the drama's general plot.

Ran had the feeling that she was touching some kind of sensitive subject. She couldn't quite imagine what, though. Conan, despite his strange ability to become a magnet for murder, white-dressed thieves infamous for magic and mysteries, wouldn't have anything to do with a crime organization like that. Even _he_ didn't have that kind of misfortune.

_What would they call themselves?_ She thought as she put away the last dish. The drama had chosen to keep the name of the crime ring a secret, but Ran knew they had a name – the protagonists had been trying to find it before the assassin played by VICK threw himself off a cliff.

Maybe something like the Black Organization, since they all wore black.

Laughing out loud at her ridiculous fancies - organizations like that didn't exist! - and receiving a strange look from her younger brother figure, Ran wiped her hand on the kitchen towel and went off to do her homework.

* * *

**Rant Corner:** Two reasons why this took so long. One, because I wanted a Vocaloid fic to be my hundredth fic. Which I have now achieved so all is well (this one is #102). Two because I had a hard time coming up with the names for BIS members. It's easier to come up with names for people that speak a language you don't understand because you can blame your lack of comprehension on their awkward sounding-ness. (I'm Korean, though I haven't been there in a long time and sound like a kid)

In all fairness, I could have just said that coming up with Korean names for celebrities is hard for me. It is. I admit it. Which is why I cheated with a lot of them. VICK, for example, is based off T.O.P. VICK is the name of the assassin from the drama IRIS. Hence why Ran was thinking about a crime organization, though that's not the exact plot of IRIS (Actually, I wouldn't know, I never watched it). SD, as I'm sure you can all tell, was based off G-Dragon (fashion idol). Others will appear later in the story and their names, I assure you, gave me a headache. I solved it with some divine intervention from the god that cures writer's block - the internet. Specifically Wikipedia.

So yes, I cheated a bit with their names - but hey, cut me a little slack here.

Also, the title. Since the OCs appearing in this fic have been based on BIGBANG - and then there are the other fangirls but let's not go there - it's only right that I use one of their songs as the title (all of the other stories in this series, minus Clockwork Relations, have a song name for a title).

Well, my favourite songs from BIGBANG happen to be: Strong Baby (SeungRi solo, still counts), Fantastic Baby, Lies, Haru Haru, Heartbreaker (yeah, GD solo, still counts), Red Sunset and Last Farewell, not necessarily in that order.

Out of all of them I thought Last Farewell would be the best title for this fic. I was sad about not being able to name it Fantastic Baby (because that _is_ my current favourite. Hey, don't judge me. Besides, boomshakalaka.) But Last Farewell is great! (Bass! B to the I to the G! Bang Bang!)

Thanks for reading through all this.


	2. A Little Awkward

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you. And apologies if BIS seems like a bunch of Gary-Stus, but they're currently idols being seen through the eyes of teenage girls/host shows who have publically warm feelings towards them.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

Secret Girl: Essentially CoverGirl, so when someone is a 'Secret Girl', it's like they're a CoverGirl, like Ellen DeGeneres and Sofia Vergara.

Beniko Banderas: Celebrity. Half-Spanish, Half-Japanese. Secret Girl, actress, model, spokeswoman for Secret Girl Japan and talk show host.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT(27/03/2013): Thanks, mountainelements, for the G-S warning and the corrections! Hope I fixed it . . .

* * *

The school days that week was stressful, to say the least. Her classmates – specifically the small-but-cruel female portion with jealousy problems – had found out that she, Sonoko and Sera-san were going to the 'concert of a lifetime', as they called it, as well as the after party passes. And they reacted badly.

On Monday nothing really happened. In the morning no one had known and in the afternoon they'd been occupied with talking and spreading rumours about the three girls lucky enough to have gotten the passes for the after party with BIS. Those rumours found themselves going into the heads of hormonal teenage girls with irrational thoughts and behaviour justification.

On Tuesday Ran found her locker filled with moderately mean notes. Nothing _too_ bad, just not what any student in their right minds would say to her directly to her face in person or in a teacher's hearing distance. She just glanced at the first one and then tossed them all out, not particularly interested in checking for love confessions from anyone currently in her school. Besides, she had a feeling that no male would try to ask her out using a note written on pink, lacy stationary.

On Wednesday Sonoko pulled on her gym shoes only to realize that the laces were missing from them. She had been excited, thinking this was a valid excuse for her to skip physical education class, until the teacher handed her a very smelly and worn pair of shoes. She took a three hour long bath when she got home and moaned in despair the entire time about it.

On Thursday Sera Masumi's desk was constantly assaulted by 'accidental' juice spills from certain passing girls. After the third time Sera-san just gave up on attempting to restore her notebook and borrowed the notes from a more-than-willing male student who had a slight crush on the tomboyish detective.

After returning the borrowed notes to their rightful owner Sera-san joined her and Sonoko on their way home. "How'd they even figure out that I was going?" she muttered, slightly grumpy. No one could blame her for the irritated look she wore on her face – all her notes for this month had been destroyed by _supposedly_ sugar-free juice.

In response to the question she hadn't really been expecting an answer to, Ran merely sent a glance towards the Suzuki heiress. "What?" the light-haired girl protested. "I had to tell _someone_!"

And that someone, apparently, had been the entire school, considering how a few jealous female students from every grade were badgering them in some form or shape. The girls that weren't harassing them with petty pranks or snide comments were harassing them with requests. Asking them for signed memorabilia, pictures or even clothing. One girl – no one knew who she was – even asked for their hair without quite specifying whether she wanted a clipping or just all of it with the boys still attached. All three of them had backed away slowly from the girl. Sonoko later swore that the girl was frothing at the mouth.

"Wonder how Kazuha-chan's fairing," Ran wondered, thinking about her Osakan friend. In her school she was the only one, and unlike them she didn't have support. Except maybe Hattori-kun, but then again, he could be pretty jealous . . . .

* * *

In a high school far away in Osaka a girl with a ponytail and the sense not to tell the hormonal teenage girls with serious fan-girl issues about her surprising good fortune at acquiring a ticket and pass to a popular concert and after party sneezed and was called an idiot by her childhood friend for a reason unknown to everyone else. But it was habit – almost a ritual – for them so everyone just ignored the two and waited for them to quieten down before restarting the lesson.

* * *

Eventually one of the hardest weeks she had ever had in school passed and the last bell for Friday rang loudly, signalling their freedom for the weekend. Ran sighed in relief as the three of them walked out of school. "I think I'm going to be glad when this is all over," she told the others. "But also sad at the same time."

Sera-san twisted her neck, making loud cracking noises. "Same here," she yawned. The usual bags under her eyes seemed deeper than before. "But I should enjoy it. I've never been to a concert before."

"You haven't?" Sonoko asked.

"No," she answered. "Never really had reason or opportunity, I guess."

Ran frowned. The female high school detective didn't seem to regret it much, but still, the extreme casual way she said that almost made it sound like she was trying to hide something. "Well, you'll get to start with one of the best in the world!" she said as brightly as possible.

"That's true!" Sonoko chirped, before giving all the reasons why having the BIS concert as the first concert she ever went to would be good. Setting high standards and expectancies, the world's best choreographers and planners behind the scene and of course . . . . "They're the hottest men in the world!"

While they were all incredibly good looking, Ran thought that was a bit of an exaggeration on her friend's part. In her opinion they should have had a certain hair style and eye shape before -

She stopped that train of thought when she realized she was changing the faces of BIS into resembling Shinichi's. "You have a boyfriend," Ran reminded her instead. "And what about Kaitou Kid?"

"That's different!" and then she changed her list from 'why the BIS concert is the concert you should see first' to 'why Kid-sama, Makoto and BIS are all the hottest men alive'.

At the agency they parted ways. Sonoko had decided that the concert, being Sera-san's first, had to be absolutely perfect. She declared that she'd take the girl shopping for new clothes. "Want to come?"

"Can't," she said. "Have to take care of the two men in my life."

Making a big fuss about not including her 'husband' and teasing her as usual, Sonoko left with a cheerful goodbye, dragging poor Sera-san away.

* * *

At dinner her father was unusually serious. "Tomorrow's the concert, right?"

"Mm-hm," she hummed, handing him his bowl of rice. Despite the harassments at school she was nearly dying of excitement. BIS! How many girls could say that they were going to meet the members in person? "Kazuha-chan's coming tomorrow morning, and Sonoko offered to take us there in a limo."

For once she was going to let her friend use her money on her. At first she had refused, not wanting to get money involved in their friendship, but Sonoko had actually begged her to allow it this one time. "I'd really like to show off," she had said when pleading. "Show BIS that Japan has really cool girls! Besides, they'll think that we're closer to them in status!"

And since it was a matter of national pride Ran had relented. It had nothing to do with the hopes that BIS would all stay longer in Japan or remember them. Absolutely nothing at all.

"Well," he huffed, trying to look intimidating. "You be careful, and if any of them even lay a hand on you the wrong way, let them know that I'm the famous Sleeping Kogoro. And that I used to be a cop."

"Dad, they're adults. I'm a minor. It doesn't look good for celebrities to-" she looked to her side to see Conan staring at them and hastily changed direction. "Er, get involved in scandal. With minors. Yeah."

Grumbling, her father just ate the food. "You just call if anything goes wrong," he told her gruffly after swallowing.

Ran paused as she lifted the spoon to her mouth, actually touched. "Dad . . . ."

"You can call me, too, Ran-neechan!" Conan-chirped. "I'll help too!"

"What would a brat like you know?" her father muttered.

While Conan argued that he could always call the nice and strong police officers like Inspector Megure and Officer Takagi or just kick them himself, Ran smiled. At times like these all those thoughts about death gods or misfortune haunting her disappeared. She really was lucky.

Eventually they all finished eating and her father wandered off to watch one of Okino Yoko's appearances on a talk show. Conan wavered, but Ran told him that he could go and do whatever he wanted. "I can do it by myself," she reassured him. She still felt like she owed him for ditching him and going to the concert. After all, Conan followed her nearly everywhere.

"Okay," he said before walking out of the kitchen slowly. The way he walked was hesitant, like he was waiting for her to ask him to do something.

He was the sweetest boy in the world. Ran turned on the radio and began to wash the dishes. He was almost like Shinichi, in the sense that both of them tried their hardest in certain things. That wasn't the only thing they had in common, but it was a trait both of them shared for sure.

The DJ of the radio station she was listening to began to talk about nostalgia and all the good things that had passed. _"Let's take a trip down memory lane,"_ the man suggested. _"A song sung by a man I hope no one has yet forgotten. Let's see if listeners remember this one."_

The dish in her hand nearly slipped out of her rubber gloved fingers as the beginning of the song Bloody Venus began to play. Soon enough, the voice of deceased singer Kimura Tatsuya began to sing. Ran knew that every song the radio station played was nothing but a music file, but she had actually been there when Tatsuya had died, right after singing this very song. It was definitely disconcerting to hear his voice and know that he didn't exist in the world.

The last time they had seen a famous music group in private someone had been murdered in misunderstanding, making a cruel love story. What about this time? What was so different about this after party?

Ran tightened her grip on the dish and scrubbed at it extra hard_. No one in BIS is going to die, _she told herself, putting the dish away with enough force to make a harsh sound. It didn't break or crack, but if she had applied more force it would have. _Nothing's going to happen to them._

Feeling uneasy she hastily changed the station, this time landing on one conveniently playing a vibrant, upbeat song by BIS. It was a Japanese version to one of their most famous songs and she sang along, banishing depressing thoughts with the music.

* * *

_"If I didn't have the fashion show tomorrow, I would have gone to the BIS concert," _on the television screen, Okino Yoko was talking wistfully about the lost opportunity. _"I saw them once in Korea, and . . . wow. Just wow. They're amazing, aren't they?"_

The hostess of the talk show, Beniko Banderas, nodded. _"I know,"_ she agreed. _"If only they spoke Spanish. People who speak Spanish automatically have their sexy-level doubled. Same for people with British accents. Still, it's a shame we both have to miss out, isn't it?"_

Sitting on the couch, Mouri Kogoro sighed. Normally he didn't watch the Beniko Banderas Show – he was too busy with Yoko. That didn't mean he didn't like Beniko – she was beautiful, famous, popular and had a list of accomplishments literally as tall as she was. Once they had actually measured the list against her height on the show. Becoming a world-famous supermodel at age sixteen, the first woman with Japanese heritage to ever become a Secret Girl, famous talk show host, actress, motivational speaker and women's rights activist, she certainly was quite likeable.

Still, he was Team Yoko all the way.

_"Wish they were starring in the fashion show as well."_

_"It's a women's fashion show . . . what would they do there?"_

_"Be everyone's eye candy? But yeah, I suppose we can't exactly stuff them in a dress and high heels. I think they're too masculine to pull that off. Hey, Yoko, you're younger than them, right?"_

_"Yes. Why?"_

_"The last time I interviewed them most of them said that they prefer women one or two years younger than them. Don't you think you fit that perfectly?"_

He spat out his mouthful of beer while on screen, the pop idol flushed a deep red._ "Beniko-chan!"_

_"I'm just saying! And don't tell me you haven't thought of it! Just think – and audience, back me up here – imagine, five men singing and dancing - not in Spanish, but still - like-"_

_"Beniko-chan!"_

_"Mm, it's a shame that some of the former Earth Ladies aren't available anymore. With your looks and their looks and all the talent in between we could have had perfect babies, right there."_

_"Beniko-chan, there's five members in BIS and only four in the former Earth Ladies."_

_"Ah-ha, now you're getting into the spirit! Oh, don't deny it, they're gorgeous. But don't worry about the odd BIS-shie out; I'd be willing to take one for the team and get the last member."_

The audience roared with laughter. Kogoro, on the other hand, wasn't happy. "No Korean punk is going to be good enough for Yoko-chan," he grumbled as the hostess and her guest went back to the topic of the day – the fashion show that would take place tomorrow.

* * *

I'd just like to say that I cried while PMing all the people that had subscribed because I had to type a new message for every single alert (apparently the same message in less than five minutes is spam). Next time I'm just going to upload the sequel and then post the final chapter. I think it might be easier for everyone (especially me) that way.

That being said, I'm very glad that I chose to make an OC version of BIGBANG and not Super Junior.

Also, yes, Beniko is Champagne from Scarborough Fair. And yes, she was slightly based off Ellen. Her character design is B-ko from the Bookmark of Demise Project.

Wonder if anyone remembers Bloody Venus and Kimura Tatsuya.


	3. Hug and Go

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

By the way, I'm **not** going to be putting the song lyrics into the story and have the characters 'sing'. Just a heads up.

EDIT(11/04/2013): Thanks to mountainelements!

* * *

Shinichi was not a happy person.

He wasn't unhappy like this all the time, no. Most of the time he was a person who was somewhat content with the way he was living, despite the oddities in it (being shrunken, hiding his true identity behind the mask of a child, tracking down a crime organization in hopes of finding a way to return to his normal life, living under the same roof as his childhood friend and crush who had no idea that her little ward was her often-missing detective friend, always having run-ins with murders, just the usual minor disturbances in life).

Right now? He wasn't too happy.

The main reason for this unhappiness was _not_ the fact that his maybe-girlfriend and definite crush was going to a concert where _supposedly_ hot older males would sing love songs and dance in what was deemed a seductive and sexy way by some young females on stage for hours. It had _absolutely nothing_ to do with the after party for the concert where practically anything could happen. And overall, it was_ not the fact that he couldn't go with her to make sure those playboys knew their places_ that caused this negative response.

. . . Okay, so it _did_ sound like the main cause of his unhappiness was jealousy if he thought about it in a semi-unbiased way. But Shinichi knew that it wasn't envy that had his annoyance levels sky high this time.

No, this wave of annoyance was because a friend-slash-rival-slash-sometimes-worst-enemy of his couldn't make it to Tokyo with _his_ childhood friend like he usually did. Instead, the dark-skinned, fiery tempered swordsman had ditched him at the time he needed him most – when girls banded together. "So you sent Kazuha here all by herself?" he demanded into the cell phone, irritated. The Osakan girl was in the living room with everyone else and the four teenage females were talking about something that, if he listened really carefully, had absolutely no content but sounded like something important yet frivolous if he didn't try to think into it. No one would come to check on him for a while and so he was free to talk to the dark-skinned detective of the West like he usually did. Maybe a bit harsher than his usual way because of his annoyed state.

_"She's fine, ain't she?"_ was the equally irritated response from the other end. Obviously, Hattori Heiji himself wasn't too happy with the way things had gone. Shinichi guessed that even the dense dark-skinned boy had his fur brushed the wrong way when _his_ crush had left him behind for the sake of some random singing Korean dudes in skinny jeans, makeup and weird clothes. _" 'Sides, somethin' came up."_

"What?"

_"Ya remember Lady A?"_

"Of course I do." Of course he did. Technically, this whole situation was because of that damned Canadian thief. If she hadn't given money and inspired the bunch of gullible singing teens Club A would have never existed and Anika Roth would have never given Ran and the others the tickets to the BIS concert for some weird obligation she apparently felt towards them and he wouldn't be annoyed right now.

That, and not too long ago the foreign woman had provided him and Haibara with fake pieces of identification that would solidify the lie they were living due to the current situations. So, yes, he remembered Lady A. "Why?"

There was a sigh. _"I dunno how ta tell ya this, Kudo,"_ he began and that was when Shinichi knew that the deity whose existence he truly doubted sometimes hated him for some irrational reason.

Damn the phantom thieves. Damn the narcissistic, kleptomaniac, attention-seeking lot of weirdoes to the eternal flames of hell, every single one of them. "She's holding one of her fundraising events, isn't she?"

_"-but Lady A's sent out – how'd ya know that?!"_

"Just a guess," Shinichi drummed his fingers on the covers on his bed. "I didn't see anything mentioning her in the media, though."

_" 'Course ya didn't,"_ Hattori snorted. "_She never sends out an advance notice ta th' public. 'pparently she only sends th' people she stole from a letter, tellin' them 'bout where they could get their stuffs back. Media gets alerted after she's clear."_

In all honesty, he hadn't bothered looking up further stuff on her after Club A. Non-violent people were nice and all, but they really didn't help him out too often (the passport didn't count, it was incentive to make him do something for her). "So how'd you get caught up in this?"

_"Th' Inao Family called me after Lady A contacted them again. Said th' minute someone calls th' cops she cancels th' entire thin', so they needed a capable private detective that could blend in with everythin' 'round the event. Th' official story's that I'm th' son's friend an' tagged along."_

"Do you even know the guy?"

_"Sure I do. Remember th' baseball koshien, where th' suicidal dad tried ta bomb th' place while we were there?"_

"Yes." He had, after all, been recently reminded of _that_ bomber case when one Dr. Hailey had gone around kidnapping people who resembled him. It wasn't too hard to pull the memory from his recollection of other bomber cases.

_"Inao Kazuhisa, pitcher for Ohgane High School an' heir ta th' family company."_

". . . I don't think she'll fall for it."

_"Neither do I, but I figured, why not."_

"And left me to suffer with teenage girls alone." It probably wouldn't be as bad as he was making it sound, but he wanted to make Hattori melt with guilt and shame.

Shinichi could practically hear the smirk from the other end and knew that the guilt trick hadn't worked on the thick-skinned guy. He had no shame. _"Sorry 'bout that,"_ Hattori apologized, not sounding sorry at all.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before? I could have gone over to Osaka and-"

_"Kudo, ya already have a thief 'round ya. Be happy with what ya have. Don't be greedy."_

"Hattori." What the hell was he implying there, that he liked phantom thieves? Yes, they were a nice distraction from the never-ending murders around him. No, he did not like them, because they were annoying, arrogant people who had nothing better to do than waste other people's time and resources for the sake of 'a good show'. That, and sometimes they helped attract murder to him. He could tell that some of them, like Kid, had a mission of some sort they were trying to complete by taking on their thief persona and he respected that – maybe they were trying to hide from something big and dangerous like him, too, which sadly made them quite alike in certain aspects – but he really wished that they'd stay away from him.

_"Ah, gotta go. Talk ta ya later, Kudo!"_

"Hattori-!"

But the Osakan had already hung up on him. Shinichi put his phone away. As far as he was concerned, Hattori could join the whole lot of thieves down there in hell and toast in eternal flames.

* * *

"I really appreciate you doing this, professor."

The fat old man smiled at her warmly. "But of course! I don't mind at all. In fact, I've been developing this new video game and I wanted to-"

"That's nice," Sonoko interrupted with a pained smile. Ran might have said something, but this was her being reasonably polite – in the Suzuki heiress's own standards to people that would not be considered a possible romantic interest, anyways. "Sorry, professor, but we really want to get good seats."

"Of course! I understand, don't let an old man like me keep you busy!"

Conan waved to her before following the professor out. "Bye, Ran-neechan!"

"Bye, Conan-kun!" she waved back.

Sera-san sighed slightly, managing to convey great depression with that single sound. "I'm kinda disappointed he can't come," the female detective said in a gloomy voice. The female detective was dressed in a way that made it impossible to mistake her gender tonight, in a white tank top, jean jacket, black leggings and – most prominently – a pink skirt. Sonoko had also pinned a few barrettes into Sera-san's curly hair and tonight, the tomboy far too often mistaken for a member of the other gender truly looked like a girl.

Sonoko raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"Just a bit," she admitted.

The light-haired girl's face went through a series of shifting movements as she tried to find something to say in response to that. Eventually, she settled on stating her own opinion. "Well, _I'm_ glad he's not coming. Every time the brat's around there's always something that goes wrong."

Ran and Kazuha-chan had to laugh at this, even if it was a sad, uncomfortable truth that followed them around.

And then Sera-san sneezed violently. "Achoo!"

"Are ya cold?" Kazuha-chan asked her, clearly concerned.

"Just a bit," Sera-san sniffed and rubbed her arms. "Not too used to a skirt, except when I'm in school . . . although the uniform's longer than this skirt."

"You know what'll warm you up?" Sonoko asked before Ran could suggest a warmer coat or a jacket for her.

"What?"

"Cheering at the concert. It'll warm you right up. Let's go!"

The chauffeur held the door open for them and shut it behind when the last person – Kazuha-chan – climbed in.

On the other side of the fancy car, Ran looked out of the limo's window and up to the afternoon sky. It was a beautiful day, the kind people always read about in novels where everyone went through something exciting and got their happy endings, the kind of sky people liked to use as a screensaver on their computers to give a semblance of the outdoors to the technology that was anything but. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue without any clouds large enough to threaten rain in the next twelve hours, and the sun was shining gloriously.

Yet Ran had to fight back a shiver. Deep inside her chest, for some reason she didn't understand, her stomach was twisting uncomfortably. Like her body was trying to tell her that she was in danger, or would be in the near future.

It was a ridiculous thought. Shinichi – and, come to think of it, her father and a few other people she knew – would have told her that she was just being a paranoid idiot who believed in something as nonexistent as ghosts and supernatural things.

Giving herself a hug, Ran turned away from the window and thanked Sonoko when the heiress handed her a can of soda.

* * *

"How are you enjoying things?" Sonoko yelled to the female detective, trying to be heard over the thousands of talking people.

Her voice wasn't heard. Sera-san cupped her ears and leaned in closer. "What?!"

The heiress repeated her question, and this time the female detective heard it. "I dunno," she said. "No music so far."

As if on cue, the lights dimmed and the audience quietened. For a moment, the only source of light was the glowsticks the fans had in their hands, the yellow plastic crown that was BIS's symbol. The only sound was the sound of thousands of breaths being taken, entering lungs and exiting them as the breathers all drew in the puff of air eager with anticipation.

A single note of sound, synthesized and on speaker ran through the stadium and the blue lights pulsed once. The crowd screamed in response. White lights started to flash and the audience began to clap to it, and the excitement was practically visible in the dark air.

Trapdoors opened and five people began to rise out. _"Hello, Tokyo!" _SD roared into his microphone.

Ran didn't bother trying to deny it; she screamed with everyone else.

The other four members began clapping, encouraging the audience to copy their actions while SD continued to speak. _"How y'all doing tonight?"_ he waited, and then grinned at the response. She couldn't see him do it directly, but the cameras caught the image of his face and showed a larger version on the big screen overhead. _"Let's hear it for BIS!"_

The new wave of cheering had barely died out when they launched into their first song.


	4. Base

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT:(30/04/2013) Thanks again to mountainelements!

* * *

Waving at their fans, the five members of BIS began to descend under the stage as the lights flickered. When the trapdoors of the stage had closed shut, the stadium was illuminated. With a single, united sigh everyone began to get up and move, ready to go home.

"Okay," Sera-san admitted. "That _was_ fun. Even if my throat hurts from all the screaming I did."

After the three hours of all the intense cheering Ran would have thought it odd if her friend didn't have a sore throat. "Where are we supposed to meet for the after party?" she asked, making sure that she had a firm grip on her pass. The last thing she wanted was dropping it or – even worse – getting it stolen.

"Backstage, I think. There was a hallway leading there – I think that's where we should go."

No one had any problems with that. Slipping out of their row, Ran looked back and saw Toyama Kazuha, who had been sitting on the far end, going the other way. "Kazuha-chan?" she called. "Where are you going?"

The Osakan girl turned around and looked surprised when her eyes met with Ran's. "Ran-chan?" she said, before glancing the other way for a second. "But . . . ."

"Kazuha-chan, what's wrong?"

Her friend gave one last look over her shoulders before giving her a sheepish smile. "It's nothin'. I just saw someone tha' looked a lot like ya, that's all. I must have gotten confused."

Ran glanced into the crowds, trying to see her lookalike, but she couldn't pick out anyone in particular from the mass of people exiting the stadium.

"Ran!" Sonoko called from behind. "Aren't you coming?"

Both girls gave up looking for her lookalike and made their way over to Sonoko and Sera-san. "Sorry," Kazuha-chan apologized. "I mistook a similar-lookin' person for Ran-chan."

"Similar?" Sonoko craned her neck in a futile attempt to catch a glimpse of this person. "She must have looked exactly like Ran for you to have been mistaken."

"Yeah, I really thought it was her. Guess I should've remembered what Ran-chan was wearin'. Heiji's always tellin' me I need ta keep my eyes open . . . ." she looked at them pleadingly. "Don't tell him 'bout this?"

This was a perfect opening to prod and tease her about her crush on her childhood friend and Sonoko eagerly jumped in, joined by a less-than-Sonoko-but-still-eager Ran. Sera-san laughed at what they said occasionally and seemed to enjoy Kazuha-chan's reactions.

By the time they had reached the door to the back of the stage, Kazuha-chan was very, very red.

"I just don't see the point on-" she was saying when the door was flung open. Sera-san, who had been leaning on the wall right next to it, let out a muffled yell as the doorknob smashed into her abdomen with all the strength of a heavy metal door with hinges that worked far too well for its – and nearby standers' – own good.

Ran quickly helped the female detective out from behind the door, asking about her injuries. She took it well, just giving her stomach a rub before dismissing the hit like it was nothing. It seemed that the cry was one of surprise rather than one of pain.

The culprit behind the abrupt door blitz attack turned out to be a harassed-looking bald guy dressed like a stage hand. "Sorry about that," he sighed, juggling his clipboard and papers. "Are you the girls with the backstage passes for the after party thing?"

Not exactly the warmest welcoming, nor the best-looking. This guy was middle aged and about as far from BIS as someone could get. "Yes."

He checked something off. "Passes?"

They all produced the right pieces of paper to show him. He scanned it with a portable device and nodded when it flashed green for every one of them. "Good, they're real. You can come in."

Ran hung back a bit while the others went through. "Are we the last ones?"

The stagehand whose nametag she couldn't quite see from her angle of sight looked down at his clipboard again despite having just checked it a few seconds ago. "No, there's one more person. If she doesn't come in ten minutes, she's going to have wasted her money."

Nodding, Ran followed the rest of her group inside. Behind her the stagehand shut the door again, the smashing sound of the closing door like an ominous signal for something terrible to begin.

Nothing like that happened. In fact, the only thing was the anti-climatic feeling she got from nothing happening.

Feeling silly but tense she made her way down the hall and entered the room. Her three friends as well as the five other girls she didn't recognize looked up at her with enthusiasm before it was replaced with disappointment. "Oh," one of them said. "You're not BIS."

Ran wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so she just stayed near her friends. "Not here yet?" she asked them quietly.

Sonoko shook her head. "Hopefully this isn't the party," she said, eyeing the cement walls and the plain, office-ready couches.

The door opened again and even she turned her head to see the person walking in. Her excitement deflated when it turned out to be a business-like woman with a girl around her age trailing behind her. She had finished her assessment of the business-like woman – probably the manager or an agent working for BIS – when she really looked at the girl.

_Oh, my._

There was no doubt in her mind. _This_ had to be the person Kazuha-chan had mistaken for her. Except for their different clothes and hairstyles – the other girl's hair was slightly more ruffled and shorter than her own – they could have been twins, easily.

The others noticed. Kazuha-chan nodded to Sera-san's silent question, Sonoko gawked openly and one of the other girls leaned over to whisper "Is that your twin sister?" to her.

She shook her head. The other girl had noticed too and even as she sat down she couldn't seem to keep her eyes from glancing at Ran.

Four boys who could have been Shinichi with a different hairstyle and now a girl that looked like her. Maybe the world was a smaller place than she had thought.

"Nice to meet you," the woman told them all. "I'm Nakamura Risa, BIS's Japanese Manager. BIS will be here soon, right after they freshen up. They're all quite sweaty at the moment."

Oh, good. Growing up with Shinichi – the neat freak perfectionist he could be – she still found it disturbing if men didn't shower and groom themselves regularly by their own free will. Her childhood friend may have been a soccer maniac on top of many things, but at least he made sure he didn't smell like old armpit around her most of the time. She didn't think she could tolerate sweaty, smelly men, even if they happened to be celebrities.

Someone knocked. "Yes?" Nakamura-san called, making her way to the other door to open it.

Behind the door, SD stood with a delivery hat on his head, holding a pizza box in his arms with a charming smile to top it all off. "Did someone order?"

One of the other girls whose name she didn't know shrieked before covering her mouth in embarrassment.

"No," Nakamura-san said flatly before closing the door. The manager had hardly walked two steps when the BIS leader opened the door to let himself in.

"You're no fun," he whined. "I miss _noona_."

Ran noticed him crossing the room to get to the place where Nakamura-san had placed her keys and papers. "Hi!" he said cheerfully, turning himself to hide the keys directly behind him from the sight of the manager lady. "I'm SD!"

While everyone had already known his name prior to his greetings which made the introduction totally unnecessary, they still smiled back. Ran noticed that he placed his delivery hat right on top of the manager's keys, though. It was an odd place to put his cap, because the table was big and was empty, excluding the keys that sat inconveniently in the middle.

Sera-san leaned back slightly in her chair with a slight smile on her face. Obviously, the female detective had seen this as well. Judging from her expectant expression she had already guessed what he was up to and was planning on enjoying the show.

"Well, the others were too busy sniffing at each other to make sure they scrubbed behind the ears," he paused to stretch one of his arms. "So I get to escort all of you to the party hall! If you'll just follow me," he picked up his hat again and Ran knew she had heard a muffled jingling sound. Did he just pick up the keys?

He held the door open until all ten of them had walked through; then he shut the door and locked it before putting a finger to his lips. "Shh," he said, making a follow-me gesture.

Not very quietly – "What's happening?" "Where are we going?" "What about Nakamura-san?" – all ten of them followed him as he led them through a tunnel-like hallway of dimmed lights and stacked materials. At the end of his path they found themselves outside where two limos were waiting for them.

"Surprise," SD grinned. "Okay, five in each limousine please. I promise we'll explain on the way there."

"Where?" the girl that looked like Ran spoke for the first time since she had appeared, hand clutching her purse tightly.

His grin widened. "We'll explain on the way there. I promise."

She doubted that an idol like SD would do something dangerous and stupid with some of his fans – that would tarnish his image, after all, and for an idol he was on the side of the cleaner ones. She stuck with her friends while five girls followed SD into one limo.

That left the lookalike girl with them. None of them really made a move until someone inside their designated limo opened the door to look out of the vehicle.

VICK. Rapper and the 'older brother' of the group. Also the man who had played the assassin in the fictional crime organization she had told Conan about. "Aren't you coming in?" he asked them. "It's cold outside."

And so they all entered the long car. It was surprisingly roomy, plenty enough for seven people.

VICK leaned back into the limousine's upholstery and smiled. "Hey, nice to meet you all," he said. "Welcome to the better limo."

Sera-san fidgeted with her skirt. To anyone else it might have been a nervous habit, but Ran guessed that it was because she was unused to wearing one. "Why is it the better limo?" she asked with no trace of any nervousness and a look of interest in her eyes, further supporting her idea. It was the 'detective' look, one even Conan and Shinichi got when they became interested in how a thing worked or turned out.

The other BIS member, Hyun, spoke to them directly for the first time. "Well, we're here and the other three aren't."

VICK shot the youngest member of the group a quizzical look. "I heard that's what you said when you and SD were on a plane and the rest of us weren't."

The youngest member wisely ignored the older brother figure. "So what are your names?" he asked them with an easy smile. "I'm Hyun, and this is VICK, obviously. But we'd like to know more about you girls, because, well, you know a lot about us but we don't know anything about you."

Sonoko eagerly introduced herself. The two BIS members nodded and ahh-ed in the right places, and even commented on her last name. "Suzuki, like Suzuki Financial Group?" VICK asked. "Like the one that's always challenging Kaitou Kid?"

When she nodded he looked impressed. "Wow. I bet you see him in person a lot, don't you?"

"You're a fan of Kid-sama?"

VICK nodded enthusiastically and Sonoko looked ready to swoon. Hyun, rolling his eyes, had to elbow his 'older brother' to make him move on from the topic of the Magician in the Moonlight.

When it was the lookalike girl's turn to introduce herself, she named herself 'Nakamouri Aoko'. "And, um, I'm not a fan of Kid," she finished weakly, as if she was expecting to be attacked or criticized.

Instead of whatever negative reaction she may have been expecting, Hyun reached forwards and held her hands tightly. "You and I are allies," he said solemnly. "We shall band together and show the world of the anti-Kid way."

VICK said something in Korean and poked Hyun, who suggested a civilized, mature way of settling this conflict and from then on there was a playful debate about whether Kaitou Kid was a good person or not. It was mostly Sonoko, VICK, Hyun and Aoko who talked while the rest of them listened, occasionally making a few comments every now and then.

Both sides claimed victory when the car came to a stop. "Aoko's point on policemen being overworked and harassed was totally legit!" Hyun exclaimed as he climbed out to open and hold the doors open for them. "I mean, come on, they have to deal with a trickster who constantly undermines their authority and wastes their time."

"They also have to deal with criminals far worse than him," VICK reminded him, helping Sonoko get out of the car. "Compared to a lot of other people out there Kid's a good person. End of discussion."

"Don't even think about using the 'I'm-older-than-you' card. What are you, five?"

Ran bit back an amused smile as she climbed out, making sure to thank the two of them for being chivalrous. Sometimes, it seemed that all men were overly competitive and a bit immature.

* * *

I blame my lateness with the update on my lack of knowledge of how celebrities act. Should have spent more time watching tv . . . .

As it is, you get Vocaloid-personalitied people combined with what little observations I've made of crazy celebrities on tv shows I Youtubed. Why did I think that this was a good idea again? Oh, right, Aoko. Well, she's here. Say hi.


	5. Farewell to You, Girl

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT:(20/5/2013) HUGE thanks to mountainelements!

* * *

"You stay away from Suzuki-chan," VICK ordered Hyun as they made their way inside the mansion. "I don't want your twisted beliefs tainting such a wonderful follower of Kaitou Kid."

"I could say the same for you," Hyun retorted as he helped Aoko-chan out of her jacket. "You stay away from Nakamouri-chan."

"How can I?" The rapper made a silly yet dramatic pose that had them giggling. Despite the whole over exaggerated posture he was making, his face was perfectly straight and serious. "She has failed to open her eyes to the awesomeness of Kid! If I do not intervene, she may forever lose herself in the abyss!"

Hyun pushed him over. "Don't be silly."

The older man straightened and dusted himself firmly. "How rude."

Whatever Hyun may have been planning to say to that, it was lost in a yelp of surprise as a blast of water hit his face squarely.

"You're late!" hooted a BIS member as he pumped the water gun again. She wasn't sure who he was due to the Grim Reaper mask he had donned, but guessing from his voice Ran was willing to bet on the person being Jin.

She, Kazuha-chan and Sonoko moved out of the way, but Sera-san and Aoko-chan were hit in the next round as both of the men in front of them ducked to avoid the second blast of water, forgetting about the girls behind them.

"Crap!" Her guess on the identity of their trigger-happy friend with the water gun proved to be correct as Jin removed his mask. "I'm so sorry!"

Aoko-chan gave a weak smile and a shy 'it's alright', but Sera-san was busy wrapping the jean jacket firmly around herself. "Do you have a spare shirt or something?" she asked, holding the tough material together with one hand. The denim jacket didn't have any buttons or zippers of any kind, and to let them hang loose would be to go around with a white tank top that happened to be soaked.

All three BIS members exchanged looks. "No?" Hyun said, looking anxious.

Sera-san sighed and switched hands. "At least I'm flat for now," she muttered.

"I'm sorry," Jin apologized, putting the water gun behind the door. "Would you like my shirt instead?"

Ran thought that was kind of romantic and thoughtful. Sera-san didn't seem to think so. "It's alright," she waved it off. "It'll dry soon."

"If you say so."

* * *

Eventually the tank top dried and Sera-san could stop holding her jacket closed. She cracked her knuckles and massaged her fingers. "Ow," she muttered.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine . . . . Thanks, though."

Now, with everyone seated in the large room that BIS had named the common room, they waited for the members to finish their briefing. Apparently they had planned this getaway to partly prank their Japanese manager and partly to break the whole glamorous stereotype some fans were beginning to associate with them.

"Of course," Hyun added. "No one's ever made the mistake of thinking that Jin was glamorous, so just don't include him."

Jin punched his arm jokingly and then began to hand out maps of the mansion. "I drew the map," he said proudly. "Out of all of us, I have the neatest writing."

"Which is why _noona_ had such a hard time reading your note to her the other day, right?"

"Shut up, bro!"

Ran looked down at the map. The labels were all written extremely neatly with perfect characters.

* * *

She had thought that they would all stay together. But no, one by one they split apart as different stations concerning different interests were introduced. She soon found herself separated from Sera-san, Sonoko and Kazuha-chan. The minute Sera-san had heard about the latest racing games in the game room she had practically teleported out of the common room like some sort of a cartoon – or game - character – to follow VICK to the game room. The last thing she heard from their direction was Sera-san promising to 'kick VICK's butt to the moon with her skills' and laughter from the other female member of their group.

Sonoko was with SD and another girl playing the games that required physical exertion, which had been a surprise to Ran – until she remembered that SD was said to hate sweaty shirts and took them off before they could get soaked with sweat.

Even Kazuha-chan had left when it was revealed that one of the other girls was a black belt in judo. Hyun had said that he was interested in learning about two of the great Japanese martial arts mainly utilizing grappling techniques for self-defense and somehow managed to whisk the two away to see a match between judo and aikido. Ran would have gone with them, only Jin had pointed out that it wasn't fair to have more than two girls with one of them. "Then the numbers are unbalanced," he had said.

Which was technically true.

So that was how she found herself in the karaoke room with Aoko, Jin, the last two girls and Lite, the last BIS member.

"Oh, no," Aoko shook her head fiercely. "I can't sing."

"Of course you can!" Lite was living up to his name as the nice guy of the group. He offered her the mike with a gentle smile. "Come on, you're Japanese! I'm not saying that to be racist or stereotypical or anything, but you guys invented karaoke! It's in your _blood_."

"Dude, that sounds _extremely_ racist and stereotypical."

Lite replied by flicking his 'brother' on his forehead. "Look, wanna sing with me?" He asked, giving her a puppy-dog look. "Please?"

Aoko visibly melted at the puppy dog look. "O-okay, but you can't laugh!"

"I won't," he held up his hands in solemn promise. "And no one else will either. Promise."

The girl took the mike he offered her and gulped loudly as he scrolled down the list of songs in the machine's database. Eyes wide with panic and terror, she opened her mouth hesitantly and began to sing after he chose an upbeat but easy song.

In her opinion, Aoko wasn't a bad singer – she did hit the right notes and didn't sing in a manner extremely unpleasant to listen to – but she did sing quietly, often mumbling the words. Lite was a valiant knight in shining armour, a true gentleman, singing loudly enough to make up for the both of them, even breaking out into silly dance moves in the middle in an attempt to make her open up.

By the end of the song Aoko was definitely smiling and singing louder than she had been. "Okay!" Lite cheered, giving a high-five to Aoko and tossing the two microphones to Jin, who caught them before the voice amplifiers hit his head. "Who's next?"

It was hard to sing in front of a famous singer – Ran knew that from experience, although the band had been extremely nice to her and Sonoko – which was why she couldn't blame the other girls for not volunteering. "I'll go," she raised her hand. "But only if someone else sings with me."

With a great deal of coaxing, wheedling, smiling and reassuring she managed to convince one of the girls, Momo, to sing with her.

That seemed to have opened up any barriers of reservations. Soon everyone was requesting songs or volunteering themselves to sing next. More than once, Ran found herself singing with Aoko at the request of others. It must have been, she thought, the novelty of seeing two extremely similar and unrelated people singing together after meeting for the first time in their lives.

Personally, she didn't see the excitement there, but then again, she was the one being treated as the different one. Maybe if it was someone who looked almost exactly like Shinichi, she would see the excitement as well.

After ten songs VICK's group came in. "Anyone want to switch to the video game room?" he asked. Behind him, Sera-san gave her a victory smile and a thumbs-up. So she had defeated the rapper in a video game challenge. Ran smiled back. "There's racing games, fighting games, Tetris games, puzzle games-"

He was cut off when a blood-curdling scream rang out in the hallway. VICK turned around, alarm on his face, and his two 'brothers' stood up as well, but it was Sera-san who snapped out of the surprise faster than anyone to dash off to the scene.

Ran's heart sank while her mind tried to be optimistic. What were the odds that there was another murder? It certainly wasn't very high, she told herself, considering the fact that the people here were on good terms with each other (as far as she knew).

Still, she pushed through the star and the other girls muttering apologies. Where had Sera-san gone?

Out of the room, down the hallway and a right turn later Ran saw Sera-san kneeling next to a girl lying on the ground. Besides her another girl was hyperventilating, face pale as white paper.

Sera-san glanced back and saw her. "Dead," she mouthed, shaking her head sadly.

The odds of there being another murder near her? They were pretty good – or, considering the situation, bad.

Ran reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone. First she called the emergency number and alerted the authorities of the situation they had here. By that time VICK had joined them and given her the address of the mansion they were currently in before backing away from the scene at the orders of Sera-san.

After assuring her that help was on the way, the person on the other side asked just how the girl had died. "Um," Ran glanced at Sera-san, who mimed being hit on the head multiple times before falling over, 'dead'. "She was bludgeoned."

"Alright, make sure that the crime scene is kept clear."

"Right."

"And Mouri-san?"

"Yes?"

"Is Edogawa Conan present at the scene?"

"What? No, Conan-kun isn't here. Why?"

"Hmm." Ran heard a few mutters about death gods and bad luck before the person on the other end talked into the mouthpiece directly again. "Well, miss, help is on the way to your location, so don't worry."

Hanging up, Ran thought of all the times something like this had happened and was slightly surprised to find herself still upset and caring. Huh. She had expected to get used to things like this happening to her.

* * *

The dead girl's name turned out to be Shimoda Rin, who had turned eighteen a month ago. She had been the judo black belt to go and spar with Kazuha-chan in Hyun's mock grappling arts tournament. According to Hyun and Kazuha-chan, she had excused herself to go to the washroom ten minutes before she had been found dead. Hyun and Kazuha-chan had thought that she had gotten lost, or was doing some other business and had decided to give her privacy.

Eighteen years old. A judo black belt. Just gone to use the washroom.

A tear ran down her cheek and Ran wiped it away with the back of her hand. Right now all that remained of the girl was a mangled, bashed in body that looked weak and fragile to a point where it almost didn't look real.

She knew it was more than just real.

Sera-san had been examining the body as best as she could without touching her, and seemed to have come to a conclusion as she stood up. "She hasn't been dead long, but we already knew that," she began, nodding at Hyun and Kazuha-chan. "She doesn't have any defensive wounds on her arms, meaning that the killer hit her with a surprise attack and managed to overpower her. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for your alibis now to make sure that no one can come up with a lie before the police get here."

No one protested to the idea of Sera-san taking charge. She wasn't exactly a famous high school detective like Shinichi or Hattori-kun, but she certainly was confident and acted like she was used to occurrences like this happening – which she most certainly was.

No one here, she thought with a pang, had ever really seen a murdered body before, much less had been involved in a situation involving murder. Right now they were uncertain, confused, scared and wanting someone to take charge.

It was a feeling she had somewhat outgrown over the years she had spent with Shinichi, her father and Conan-kun.

Borrowing a notebook SD carried around in case inspiration struck him, Sera-san jotted down all the alibis that could be proved by another person, as well as their story as proof of their initial words and recollection of events.

Ran didn't quite understand why Sera-san was writing everyone's alibis, since all she really had to do was gather the people who couldn't be verified by another person as the group of potential killers, but she figured that it would be better to trust the high school detective at this.

By the end of their questioning period Sera-san had three people as suspects; Nakajima Megumi, who had gone out for some fresh air in the middle of playing video games; Ishiguro Yukari, the girl who had (claimed) to stumble upon Rin after leaving SD's room for a while; and Sakamoto Miki, who had been in the karaoke group with her but had slipped out to grab something to eat from the kitchen during the ten minute period.

Sera-san tapped the pencil against her chin before speaking again. "I'm sorry, but at the moment it looks like one of you three is the murderer. To make this easier, please listen carefully and follow the instructions." She began to give them orders, telling them that they couldn't be left alone, and more than one person had to be with them at all times. "In a way, it's for your safety as well as ours," she ended it with that.

All three agreed, clearly scared of what had happened.

* * *

Yes, now even the people on the 911 (or 119) hotline know Conan.

Names of the OC girls come from Vocaloids and their voice providers, and the dead girl's name is Rin (from the Kagamine twins) because she and her brother die all the time. Seriously. Right off the top of my head I can list ten songs where one or both of them kicks the bucket.

Updates will be erratic because of life, apologies for any inconveniences.


	6. Strangers Again So Easily

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT(20/06/2013): Thanks shout-out to mountainelements!

* * *

Sera-san was thinking hard. Her eyes were downcast, yes, but they were practically boring holes into the ground with the intensity the teenage detective was putting behind them. She was twirling a pencil thoughtfully and the writing utensil common to any store was a round blur in her skillful fingers.

Sera-san was the picture of 'dead-serious' and in fear of disturbing her thought process, no one wanted to get closer to her.

Only Ran walked up to her. "What's going on?" She asked, hoping for an explanation about the situation at hand. She had no doubt that the female detective would come up with an explanation for it all in the end and reveal it in a dramatic way, but she wanted to know just what Sera-san was contemplating at the moment.

"Hm?" The pencil shook awkwardly as it dipped up and down before coming to an ungraceful, hasty stop. "Oh," Sera-san smiled at her distractedly. The dark circles under her eyes seemed to have grown even more pronounced within the last few minutes. "Just . . . thinking about the case."

Of course she was. But Ran didn't point out the obvious. She just waited patiently for Sera-san to organize her thoughts because if there was one thing she knew about teenage detectives, it was that they liked to have their thoughts and heads straight before going into presentation. They didn't always get to, but they much preferred to give an organized and thought-out explanation of what had happened. Since she could afford a few seconds of waiting, Ran decided to give Sera-san some time.

Sera-san didn't turn her face, but her eyes rested on the other people for a moment. With the exception of the two of them the rest were in the corner of the room, muttering and scratching their heads. Their three suspects sat on the sofa, all looking extremely paranoid and scared.

"Where's the weapon?" The detective whispered, so quietly Ran had to strain her ears to catch the phrase before feeling guilty as the possibility that it wasn't meant for her ears at all came to mind. "Where's the blood splatters? The accessory? The _motive_?"

To Ran all three seemed innocent, but they almost always did to her – the murderers who committed crimes in front of her father and her ward and thought they would be able to get away with it. Many of them had motives fueled by the saddest reasons she'd ever heard, but in the end they had taken matters into their own hands and taken a life.

A reason to kill someone. Would she ever have one?

She hoped not. She could never quite look at all the suspects and think of them as killers. It was like she refused to see the worst in them, and while she didn't want to be a burden, she still didn't want to believe in people being evil naturally or something like that.

Sera-san turned to her. "Did you notice any of them carrying a bag of some sort?"

Ran looked at the three girls again. None of them carried anything, and she doubted they would have left their personal possessions alone in an unfamiliar area filled with strangers –

This after party idea was beginning to look like a very bad idea.

"You could ask Sonoko," she suggested to Sera-san. "She might have noticed an accessory the others were carrying."

And maybe, just maybe, Deduction Queen Sonoko would kick in and save the day. But Ran didn't say that out loud either.

Sera-san liked the idea well enough, so Ran and Sonoko traded spots. Ran joined the worried others and stuck close to Kazuha.

Surrounded by the safe feeling of being near someone close to her, she observed. She tried to think like Shinichi and assemble the clues she had in order to build a theory backed by further proof and circumstances.

In the end Ran came to the pitiful conclusion that any of them could have been the murderer – only, she still didn't see how any of them could have been because she still couldn't make herself see them as someone capable of killing another human being. Back to square one.

When Sonoko joined their ranks again Ran saw that Sera-san didn't look too happy. She probably hadn't made any progress in her deductions either.

Ran couldn't blame her for it. This seemed like a straight-out murder, and only a forensic search would do any real good in finding the solution. There weren't any tricks involved, no ways to make it a perfect murder of a sort. It just seemed like a – she shuddered here slightly – a hit-and-run or a crime of spontaneous passion.

She fingered her cell phone and considered calling her father. Or Shinichi. Or Conan instead of Shinichi because Shinichi always seemed to end up deducing things over a quick, convenient phone call for the kid.

Ran knew it was totally irrelevant and not even a threat like her paranoid mind liked to portray it . . . but sometimes she really was jealous of that child. Yes, Conan was ten years younger than Shinichi, yes, he was distantly related to her childhood friend, yes, it was probably a mentor-student type of relationship the two had, but still, even after reminding herself of all that at the end of the day Ran found herself – only occasionally – jealous of the little boy named Edogawa Conan. Sometimes she felt like Shinichi gave more of his attention to Conan and that stupid, never ending case of his.

Sometimes she wondered if he even had a case.

* * *

Masumi gritted her teeth in frustration, though she made sure to not show any of her inner emotions on her face. Her body tensed, but she figured that no one would notice the change in her body language. In her experience most people tended to not notice the small details.

The murder. Yes, the murder. Going overboard on beating Rin, even after she died, showed that the person was enraged. Rage was hard to bring on without personal connections or relations to people. Logically, the murderer knew Rin.

Unfortunately when she had gone over their stories all three had claimed to not know Rin. There wasn't much she could do to find out whether any of them were lying or not here, so investigating that would lead nowhere.

There was the blood. Yes, the blood. An overkill like that would have resulted in major blood splatters. Masumi saw none on any of the three suspects. It could have been easily solved with some kind of covering to prevent blood from getting on their skin and clothes, such as a plastic poncho or a tall rain coat of some sort. That could be found easily enough with a thorough search of the grounds.

Masumi glanced at the pool of people. She wanted to get away and search garbage cans for anything that might have been used in the murder, but she was reluctant to leave any of them alone.

If her theory – a half-baked theory that had only semi-logical arguments and coincidences on its side – was correct, then the police couldn't get here fast enough.

God damn it! She very nearly lost control and kicked the wall next to her in frustration. The key to solving this case didn't lie in finding a lie in alibis – it lay in sorting through all the evidences. She _knew_ that the incriminating evidence just lay there, waiting to be analyzed by the CSIs and all the forensic labs, but that was the problem. This crime didn't need all the 'who-had-the-time-to-do-the-deed' - all it needed was a spray of luminol. Which she didn't have.

* * *

"I need to go to the bathroom," Momo confessed after half an hour of holding it back with sheer will. In normal circumstances she would have been able to hold back her bladder even longer, but the shock of seeing an actual dead person – murdered, too – had been a bit too much on her bladder control. Heck, she was lucky she hadn't wet her pants in front of everyone when she saw the dead girl. "Is it okay if I . . . ."

The girl who looked a lot like a boy didn't seem too happy at the idea of her having to go, but it wasn't Momo's fault.

Okay, so maybe the large drink had been her fault, but still. Nature went when nature went. Not that she said that out loud, because it was embarrassing even in normal circumstances and BIS was in front of her, so that was a big no-no.

In the end, two girls named Ran and Kazuha volunteered to escort her to the bathroom. Girls escorting girls. Momo was all for feminism and female empowerment, but it still wasn't the same, girls escorting girls.

Reminding herself that it was plain embarrassing for BIS to escort her to the bathroom so she could pee, Momo took what she could and tried not to hobble on the way to the bathroom.

Once inside, she locked the heavy door and sighed. It was terrible, what happened to the girl – Rin – but this mansion was really cool. If she knew the architecture lingo and all that brainy design stuff, she may have made some clever comments on the support or the arch or whatever, but all she could say at the moment was that the bathroom interior design was awesome.

Oh, and that she would have absolutely loved to live in a place like this. Provided that no one got murdered.

Feeling relieved after she finished her business, Momo washed her hands and then leaned in to wash her face.

When she was struck from behind she never even got to scream.

* * *

After nearly five minutes, during which absolutely no responses had come from Momo even after loud pounds on the heavy door and yells for some kind of confirmation of life, Ran and Kazuha managed to knock the door down.

Inside, they found Momo dead. Beaten in the same spot Rin had been hit, she lay with her dented head stuck under the still-running sink, her body sticking out at odd angles.

After they turned the water off, Ran stayed to make sure no one else came back while Kazuha went to fetch the others and alert them of the news. During the time alone Ran tried desperately to not think about any possible remaining ghosts or evil spirits at work. If her father, or Shinichi, or even Conan was here, any of them would have dismissed her fears as silly things and made her feel safe, if not stupid for believing in such things –

_Thump_.

Ran stifled her scream, but it still came out as a half-shriek. She spun around to the source of the sound, which proved to be –

The window. It had been open before, but the wind outside must have blown hard enough to knock the thing shut.

She almost laughed in relief. Almost.

"Is something wrong?" Sera-san poked her head in. Her eyes immediately flew to the dead body – Momo – and she began to assess the situation. "Did you call for help?"

"Oh!" She'd totally forgotten to do that. "Um, no, I'll do that now."

"Thanks, Ran-chan," Sera-san flashed her a quick smile. "And while you're calling, would you mind asking them about just why it's taking so long for the police to get here?"

"Sure," Ran turned away as the dial tone began to ring.

* * *

"So?" Sera-san asked her after she hung up.

Ran sighed. "They said that there was a fallen tree on the road here. They'll have to take the long way."

Sera-san groaned. "You've got to be kidding me! Of all the times for there to be a tree fall?"

Ran shrugged and tried to not look as guilty as she felt. These kinds of things seemed to happen a lot in situations where she and her family – related by blood or by other means – were involved. "So who do you think the murderer is?"

The female detective rubbed her temple and looked behind to check everyone else – all kept away by the horror of the second dead body of the evening – before leaning in close to her. "All three of the suspects were under my watch the entire time."

Ran blinked. "So . . ."

"None of them are responsible for Momo's death."

Her throat went dry. "Anyone else?"

Sera-san shook her head. "I don't know; I was occupied with those three. If anyone else slipped out while you two and Momo were at the washroom, I didn't see them. Neither did Sonoko-chan."

"So . . ." she really didn't want to face this possibility.

Sera-san looked grim. "There might be another killer."

Ran looked at the others again. Kazuha and Sonoko? Never. But she didn't know the other girls, or BIS, really. Any of them could have been the first or second killer.

What about Aoko? The girl who looked so much like her, who felt like such a good person –

But then there were times when she had thought that a person could never be capable of even considering taking the life of another, only for the truth to come out and the person she had trusted, believed in be revealed as someone guilty of the ultimate crime of hate.

No, she really couldn't trust anyone but her friends. Ran wasn't going to have her trust shattered so painfully like before again.


	7. Party Like Lilililalala

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

EDIT(21/07/2013): Thanks mountainelements!

* * *

Her cell phone's battery was running low. Twenty-three percent.

How long had it been since she last checked the time? A minute ago. Time went by too slowly in a tense situation. Each second felt like it was stretched out to ten. It was like the most boring school lesson she had ever sat through, only filled with tension and fear.

The atmosphere was somber and so thick Aoko thought she could cut it with a butter knife.

Two murders. Oh.

Kid never hurt anyone. It was his only redeeming quality, the one good thing about him she was reluctant to acknowledge and yet never could forget because in a way she owed him for it.

Her fingers clenched and unclenched. Aoko wasn't used to this. Murder? That kind of thing wasn't something she or her father talked about during dinner or whatever time they spent together. She'd been so thankful when she heard stories about police families being broken up because of fathers being desensitized to everything that her own father was still fiery and full of passion for his job. Him being happy made her happy, which kept the family happy because she didn't have to tell her mom about any troubles involving her husband.

Aoko hadn't known Rin or Momo, but she had thought that they were nice people. They certainly _seemed_ like nice girls, the kind that had lots of friends and did great in school.

Never the type to do something to deserve being murdered. Actual victims.

The sickeningly sweet perfume of cherry blossoms that the girl sitting next to her was wearing gave Aoko a huge headache, but she found herself not wanting to move.

No, that wasn't right. She did want to move, but not just some shuffling and readjusting or reseating. She wanted to do something. Anything. Dance, walk home, run until this entire thing was all behind her or spin around and around until the whole world spun while she sat dazed on the ground.

Something. Anything.

It was childish of her, but she wished that they could play a game or something while waiting for the police to come. Perhaps Kaito with his happy-go-lucky personality was rubbing off on her. He may have been the clown, the pierrot with the smiling face, but he was stronger than anyone she ever knew – maybe he was even stronger in spirit than her father. He always lightened the situation and made people feel better with his smiles and tricks.

She really wished that her mother had been able to get him a ticket here. He would have been polite and grateful in front of her mother (maybe), but then he would have ranted, complained and whined about having to go to see BIS live in a concert before making plans to give away the ticket to someone worthy.

Aoko would have known better. Kaito would never just give away a gift someone picked out for him, even if that gift was hideously wrong for him and he absolutely hated it. He would have sucked it up and used it with a pleasant smile as if he was really happy with said object he seriously disliked in reality.

Unless it was fish. Then he would have run away screaming.

Aoko's mouth twitched at that thought, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from grinning. She'd look suspicious and extremely disrespectful.

She checked the time, an action to keep her idle even for that split second. To her surprise her daydreaming had taken an astounding time of five minutes.

She glanced around after putting her phone away. Somber faces, nervous body language and tension between everybody.

An atmosphere like this drove her insane. Aoko went back to her world of daydreams where she was forcing Kaito to attend the concert and after party with her. He would complain about it the entire time, play a few tricks, embarrass her, earn a chase, laugh sheepishly and make her smile somehow.

He'd have cheered up everyone with a single but extremely impressive magic trick, occupying and diverting their troubled thoughts to wonder at how the trick had been played right in front of their very eyes.

No. Wait. That was wrong.

Kaito wouldn't have been that disrespectful or careless. He knew what it was like to lose someone to death. Even if no one here had really known the two victims he would have found the killer, incapacitated him in some non-violent and extremely unique way, and _then_ he would have flaunted his 'awesomeness' at magic like a vain peacock and made everything better with his brand of that special something.

The green bar at the top of her screen was irritatingly slim. The white numbers didn't help her annoyance towards the short-lived battery, either. Twenty-two percent.

On a whim, she sent him a text message. _Hey._

To her surprise, the phone buzzed in response moments after her message was sent. _Hey. How's the party?_

Well, why not tell him. Kaito, for all of his flamboyant habits, wasn't a gossip, and it wasn't like she knew something important to the case anyways. _There were two murders._

His response took a bit longer this time. _You're joking_.

_I wish_, she texted. Then, before he could respond or she could rethink her decision, she pressed in _I wish you were here._

His response wasn't arrogant. _You want me to go there right now?_

Aoko did. She really did. A familiar face would have made a huge difference for her.

Unfortunately, this was the scene of a murder and she knew firsthand that police officers did not appreciate people unrelated poking around and cross-contaminating evidence like no one else's business. _It's okay_, she texted.

_If you say so. Did you tell your dad?_

Oh, crap. That should have been the first thing she did. The thought of informing her father hadn't even occurred to her.

_Oh, crap,_ she texted him. _Hang on, I'll tell him now._

Aoko pressed 'Send' and waited for the green of the confirmation message to pop up on the screen. She was met with a red 'Failed' instead.

She tried 'Resend'. It failed again. No signal, which was weird.

"Does anyone else have cell phone problems?" she asked aloud.

* * *

"I wish I could just put them all through a strip search," Sera-san confided in her after a quick check had resulted in all the mobile phones in their possessions showing that annoying 'out of service' apology notice. When her lookalike, the nice girl named Aoko, had brought the sudden lack of cell reception up, everyone had checked and found themselves cut off from civilization.

"Why?"

Sera-san turned her head both ways to check for eavesdroppers before leaning in to tell her a secret. "Cell phone jammer," she whispered simply, keeping her words short and to the point to prevent anyone from noticing.

"Oh," Ran understood now. "Wait, but why would one of the murderers stop us from communicating with the outside world? We've already contacted the police and they're on their way."

"Maybe the killers – or killer - don't know that," Sera-san shrugged. "Or, maybe this is a plot to try and get rid of us all in one swoop with a plan that can't have anyone else knowing just what happened."

At her look, Sera-san hastily tried to make up for it. "It's doubtful that such a plan could be made and executed properly. I mean, the previous victims were bludgeoned. That's a really simple way to kill someone. I doubt the man responsible is capable of extensive planning."

"If our killer's even a man," Ran pointed out.

"Sorry," Sera-san made a face. "Slip of the tongue. I assume a lot, don't I . . . ."

She fell silent.

Worried at just how oddly that question had ended, Ran waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Sera-san?"

"Hang on," the female detective muttered. "Ran-san, you're slightly taller than Rin and Momo were. Can you bend your knees just a little? A little more – yeah, that's it!"

Sera-san slipped behind her and made a few humming sounds. "Alright, I've got it."

"Got what?"

"The height of our killer or killers. You're right, Ran-san – our killer or killers are almost definitely women."

* * *

Masumi knew that women were capable of killing. She'd seen pictures of women on the FBI's top wanted lists, read books that exclusively focused on female killers and heard firsthand from her brother that sometimes, the most dangerous killer was a woman with nothing to lose and revenge to gain.

And yet she had still retained that doubt for some silly reason she didn't understand. Even when there had been only three suspects – all girls – she'd been trying to think of a way for anyone else to have committed the deed.

In justification, it wasn't because of twisted feminism or something like that, it was just that the murder had seemed brutal to the point where the killer had wanted something extra from it. Most of the times the goal of female killers was the murder, not what they did. Both Rin and Momo's deaths had been overkill.

Of course, there was still the chance that one of the killers was a man who was either shorter than average or had cleverly bent his knees as a counter-forensic measure. All the members of BIS were tall (picky Korean talent agencies and beauty standards) and she couldn't ask how they would plan the perfect crime without giving away anything.

If a murder case could be complicated because it was just too straightforward, this was certainly one that was.

And then . . . then there was one more option, one she didn't want to go into because it was unpredictable, unlikely and unfortunate. Variable X. The unknown.

The killer, possibly, wasn't any of them. And if the killer had left after killing Momo, then the police couldn't come fast enough.

* * *

"That's it," Jin stood up. "I can't hold it anymore."

Sera-san reminded them of the buddy system, which was to now extend to being together even in the bathroom. Ran thought that everyone else would just hold it until the police got here after her friend announced that, but it appeared that Jin had consumed just too many drinks to last.

With obvious reluctance, his four 'brothers' got up, much to Jin's frustration. "Not all of you!"

They all sat down immediately, worsening the singer's mood. "Dudes, seriously."

After several arguments and rounds of rock-paper-scissors (Jin's face grew a bit more irritated after each round) SD and Lite proved to be the unlucky losers.

"This is going to be awkward," SD muttered as the three of them left.

Ran didn't even want to think about it. Actually, just hearing them discussing and arguing it out (like certain teenage boys she knew) for the sake of pride made her feel awkward. She turned her eyes to the window.

A pale face. Blood splatters. Messy hair. Wide, curious eyes looking into the room from the corner of the window's glass pane.

Ran was on her feet screaming before she realized the face was gone.

"Ran-chan?!"

"Ran! What's wrong?" Sonoko was there, holding her hand and concerned.

"A-a face!" everyone looked towards the window. Ran would have groaned in frustration if she could have regained her voice. Of course it wasn't there now!

"Ran-chan, there's nothin' there," Kazuha said cautiously.

"I-I swear I saw it," she managed, trying to get the image of it out of her head. This was like a bad horror movie. A group of girls and boys in a mansion being killed off one by one –

She tried very hard to keep the bile rising in her throat down. "I want to go home, Sonoko."

"Me too," her friend patted her back, soothing her slightly. "I know. And we will, remember? The police will be here soon. They'll take our statements, take in all the evidence and stuff and then I'll be the awesome Deduction Queen Sonoko and solve it all."

"Is she alright?"

"I think so."

"I'm good," she said aloud. "I'm good. I just thought . . . I thought I saw something, that's all."

The answer was good enough for the three hastily-returned members of BIS who set out to go on the awkward journey of bathroom buddies again, but Sera-san seemed interested. "What exactly did you see?" she asked.

Now, safe with Sonoko patting her back and Kazuha's comforting presence there, she couldn't make herself look into Sera-san's eyes and tell her exactly what she'd seen. "I must have imagined it."

"Or not. Please, Ran-chan."

Reluctantly, she began to describe the face. Sera-san sketched in the notebook as she was forced to relive that memory.

When the female detective showed her a quick sketch, she could only glance at it briefly before having to turn away, revulsion rising in her. "That's it."

* * *

AN: Please yell at me if I don't write quickly enough.


	8. Tonight

**Last Farewell**

**Summary: **When Ran and her friends are given tickets for a concert and afterparty where they get to meet the hottest Korean boy group in existance it's exciting, to say the least. But when the partygoers get stuck in a mansion with a killer amongst them, they're going to have to be very, very careful and trust no one - not even their new friend Aoko.

**Pairings:** A few hints here and there.

**A/N: **Own nothing that's canonically DC. Recommend you read all the stories listed in the Prequels and Side Stories if you want better understanding. Also, I don't like using brand names and am forbidden from using actual people. So you get a large number of OCs that are apparently world-famous thrown at you.

BIS/1315: Fictional Korean Boy group that's based off BIGBANG. I guess I own them. BIS, I mean, not BIGBANG.

**Prequels:** "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Scarborough Fair"

**Side Stories:** "Clockwork Relations", "Invisible", "Meltdown"

* * *

While Ran calmed down with the help of her friends, Masumi snuck over to the window to check something. No traps or devices installed to hurt, maim or scare . . . .

But there was blood faintly smudged onto the panes along with the blurry, transparent patch of what looked like facial oil.

There was someone on the property, and while Masumi couldn't go ahead and say that this person was directly responsible for one or both murders, the unknown person did have blood on their faces.

Masumi did a quick count. Other than her, there were seven girls and two men here. Including her, three were definitely an expert in some sort of martial arts.

She returned to Ran's side. "I need you to listen to me," she began urgently.

* * *

"I need you to stay here with everyone else while Kazuha-chan and I go to check something out," Sera-san muttered, eyes focused on the open notebook in her hand. Her voice was muted and quiet, and Ran could barely pick up on the words. "And I want you to trust no one."

"W-why can't I go with you?" Ran asked, confused.

Sera-san flipped a page and turned her head slightly, like she was reading the contents of what she had written and muttering them out aloud to see if a connection could be made. "The person at the window was real."

Ran paled. The bloody face was real? The horrible, ghost-like face wasn't her hyperactive imagination?

"And if the person is the killer," Sera-san continued, using the back of a pencil to scratch behind her ear, "they might feel that it's more important to kill you first, since you're the only person who saw them."

She hadn't even been able to see enough to determine the peeper's gender! But Ran bit down on her tongue to let Sera-san finish her instructions and explanations.

"You'll be safer here," Sera-san concluded. "Easier to defend yourself when the enemy is forced to come to you."

All excellent points.

Sera-san informed Kazuha-chan about her plans, and then made a louder announcement to the rest of the room.

Hyun and VICK looked their way. "We'll come with you," the rapper said, getting up. His fellow group member nodded and stood as well.

"No," Sera-san shook her head. "We need you to stay here so you can help protect everyone else."

"But what about you?"

Sera-san grinned and the two of them took a small step back when her double tooth was revealed for all to see. "We can take care of ourselves."

* * *

How long had it been since she had called the police? Thirty-five minutes. By limousine it had taken all fifteen of them twenty minutes to arrive here, and the police were taking a detour because of a road block, so . . . another twenty minutes at most?

Ran wished they would come sooner. She wanted to go home and be near her loud, occasionally drunk father and her sweet, smart brother surrogate.

VICK rubbed the back of his head. "Some night, huh?" he said weakly.

Hyun sighed. "We're sorry for this, girls," he said apologetically.

There was a flurry of "no, no, don't be" and "it wasn't your fault" and "if it weren't for this it would have been a super awesome night".

The door opened. Since Sera-san and Kazuha-chan had just left, Ran turned around expecting to see the three other members of BIS.

Instead, she was met with the sight of a figure in a hoodie with a gun pointed at her.

Sonoko stifled a shriek. The other inhabitants in the room froze.

Ran's mind went blank for a split second before going into overdrive. The person, thin and rather small, was out of her kicking or punching reach. Her karate couldn't help her.

Wait, what about the others? What about SD, Jin and Lite, or Sera-san and Kazuha-chan? Were they hurt? Did this person get them somehow? Was this their killer? Surely the person with the gun was the killer responsible. He or she had to be.

Still with their gun pointed at her, the killer slowly walked into the room. "Get up," a low but definitely feminine voice growled.

They obeyed, hands held open ahead of their bodies in a loose, 'please don't hurt me' stance.

"Slowly walk out," she ordered.

In this excruciatingly tense way they were forced into the basement, held at gunpoint.

Inside the large room that smelt dizzyingly like gasoline, Jin sat trying to revive SD and Lite, both of whom were unresponsive and lying on the ground. When they came in he leapt up. "You guys!"

"Jin, what happened?" VICK's eyes were wide with alarm.

"What happened?" everyone flinched as the hoodie woman waved her gun around. "_What happened_? He denied our love and destroyed it, that's what happened!"

"What are you talking about?" Hyun asked cautiously as Ran tried to find a way to slip behind some of the people closer to the girl so she could make a chance to hit her hard. "What do you mean by your love?"

The woman tugged at her hoodie irritably. "He loved me," she sniffed, voice filled with tears. "Over and over again, in every single concert, in every single video where he sang and danced and smiled, he told me that he loved me. I _believed_ him and I loved him back. How could I not? His looks, his actions . . . ."

Ran had heard of something like this. She didn't remember it, but it was some sort of mental disease that convinced the person that someone else was in love with them and was secretly sending them messages through their actions and words.

"_But then_," she began, enraged, "he cheated on me!"

"I - !" Jin half-shouted before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to get aggressive with a person holding a gun because a person holding a gun could always get more aggressive than a hostage with no weapons ever could. "Look, I didn't cheat on anyone."

"_Liar_!" she shrieked. "You've been visiting your other woman! I saw you, _I saw you_!"

"That was my manager!" he said, voice rising. "We're just friends!"

"You think I can believe you?" she asked hysterically. "You were going to the _hospital_! Together!"

"What?" Hyun turned his head towards Jin. "_Noona's_ been going to the hospital?"

Jin glanced from the gunwoman to his 'bros', clearly frustrated. ". . . yeah," he said in the end.

"Dude," VICK said softly. "Why didn't _noona_ tell us? Why didn't _you_ tell us?"

"She didn't want me to," he said relucatantly. "I only found out because I caught her resigning from work. She made me _swear_ to never tell you guys."

"So you would have kept that from us forever?" VICK demanded. "You bastard!"

He lunged towards Jin, but an ear-splitting gunshot made him stop. "See?" their gunwoman sniffed. "He cheated on me, and with his manager, too."

Logic was not going to work with this woman. Maybe gentleness would? "Please," Ran tried. "The police are coming, and no one here wants you to get hurt. _Jin_ doesn't want you to get hurt."

The hand holding the gun trembled. Ran's heart surged with hope and longing as she desperately tried to wish it so.

But then the hand steadied. "It doesn't matter," she wiped her tears away. "Our love can never go back to the way it used to be."

Ran stared in horror as she brought out a lighter. "We'll all go together, okay?"

Before she could open the lid and start the fire, a hand from behind wrenched the gun out of her grip. When she turned, someone kicked her head hard enough to throw her to the center of the room.

Kazuha-chan calmly unloaded the gun and removed the clip before gingerly placing the gun on the floor. Sera-san lowered her foot.

"Oh, good," the female detective said casually. "We got here in time."

* * *

The police finally arrived shortly after, arrested their gunwoman and began to load the bodies of Momo and Rin. An anticlimactic end to a tense night. She was glad that it had ended quickly without any drama. Drama, she definitely could do without.

Ran sat on the steps to the mansion's front door, looking up at the stars.

"Are you okay?"

It was Aoko.

"Yeah, I'm fine . . . ."

Aoko looked up as well. "They're really pretty."

"Mm-hm."

A moment of silence passed.

"I'm sorry," Ran said.

"Hm? What for?"

She gave a sheepish smile. "I didn't know if I could trust you, so I kept trying to distance myself from everyone but my friends. I didn't want to get attached in case you or anyone else was the killer."

Aoko sat down next to her. Everyone else had gone to use the bathroom – the bathroom that wasn't either the site of Momo's death, or the site of SD and Lite's 'mugging' and 'tasering' – and Ran was waiting for them to return, but she didn't mind the company. "I don't think I can blame you for that," she said. "Sometimes, I think that I need to distance myself from my friend just because he's always acting like it's the last time I'll ever see him."

"Huh," kind of like Shinichi, only he kept appearing and disappearing, never staying long enough. Sometimes she wondered if it would be better to save herself all the heartbreak and keep herself away from him. Of course with the recent meetings and the events that they had spiraled into, that was out of her options, but still. The thought _had_ come up before.

"But I care about him too much to ever just let him go," Aoko wrapped her arms around her knees. "Sometimes I think he knows that."

London and that very awkward yet romantic and sweet confession. Her cheeks felt hot. "I think I understand your situation."

Aoko giggled lightly. "Wow. You must be an understanding person."

"More like similar experiences."

A phone went off. Aoko made a face. "Crap, that's him. Sorry, Ran-chan."

"No problem."

Aoko excused herself to answer the phone. Judging from the heated responses she was giving and obviously getting, their relationship really was like what hers and Shinichi's had been before it had . . . .

Well, Ran supposed that the best word for it was 'improved'.

Looking at the stars again, Ran smiled. "I'm glad that the killer wasn't one of us."

* * *

"Aoko!" Kaito ran out of the car before it even stopped. "Are you okay?"

"Kaito? What are you doing here?"

"Shinichi?!"

"Kudo-kun?!"

"Nakamouri-chan, you _know_ him?! Wait, _what_? Did you call him _Kaito_?"

"Who _are_ you?"

"Will someone explain this?"

Detective Sato snapped her fingers. "Hey, you were that kid who was kidnapped by Dr. Hailey! I remember that case!"

"Huh?"

And the chaos continued for a while until people realized that in order to hear an explanation, they had to shut up.

* * *

_"_Another_ murder?"_ Sonoko's mother sighed. _"Darling, you need to stop associating with all those detectives."_

"Mother," Sonoko groaned into the phone. "I _am_ a detective. I can't help that the mysteries of the world are attracted to me."

* * *

_"Yer alright, right?"_

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. How 'bout ya, Heiji? How's huntin' down th' thief goin'?"

Having accidently activated the trap question, Kazuha was forced to endure Heiji's rants on blackmailing women and rich people with just too much dirt on themselves without even being given the full story.

* * *

"If only Kudo-kun was here," Masumi shook her head in amusement. "Then we'd have a matching set."

Kaito blinked in confusion.

* * *

Finally, we're done. Sorry for breaking the tradition of having the killer be one of the three suspects. Technically, this story's complete, but I will post a bonus chapter featuring the BIS boys visiting their manager when the sequel is written.

Also, I'm writing a story for Heiji facing down Lady A.

Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, followed and added this to their favourites.


End file.
